At Middleburg Humane, It’s A Labor of Love

At Middleburg Humane, It’s A Labor of Love

By Bill Cauley

Stephanie Bates has been an animal lover all her life.

Even as a youngster, she almost never hesitated when there was an opportunity to pick up a stray animal, bring it home and make it her own. It’s a passion she’s never outgrown.

Bates started out riding horses growing up. Soon, she got interested in adopting all kind of animals. Dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, pigs, rabbits, horses. It’s no wonder she boasts a household of some 23 animals on the farmette she and her husband live on in the Middleburg area. They have no children, but don’t tell that to the animals living with them.

“You could say they’re our family,” Bates, the board secretary of the Middleburg Humane Foundation in Marshall said of her personal menagerie.

At MHF, she sees many animals come into and leave the shelter. Most of the animals come there when surrendered by their owners, for one reason or another, or are rescued from places where they’ve been abused, neglected or underfed.

Bates said she’s seen some of the YouTube videos where someone finds a stray animal along the road or in an abandoned building, completely ignored, hungry, crying out for help. She admitted they’re hard to watch.

“We don’t see that here,” Bates said, adding staffers don’t canvas the county looking for strays. The facility takes in what’s given to it, veterinary staff attend to the needs of the new arrivals at the on-site veterinary clinic, the animals are fed, groomed, and given comfortable quarters to live in as they await the chance to be adopted and moved to a forever home.

Even stray cats not physically living at the foundation farm are cared for. In an effort to control the cat population, under a trap, spay-neuter, return program, these “community” cats are taken care of and treated with respect.

“The thing to remember is that this is a no-kill shelter,” Bates said. “The animals that come here are not euthanized if a home cannot be located after a certain amount of time.”

The idea for MHF came about thanks to the efforts of Hilleary Bogley in 1987. Seeing the need for a way to care mostly for dogs at first, and helping find them foster homes, she started Scruffy’s Ice Cream Parlor in Middleburg as a fund-raising venture.

Over time, the shop soon led into the “Scruffy’s Strays” program, foster homes were found for many dogs, cats and other animals.

This venture led to a fund-raising program for the purpose of building a facility, which could house a shelter for stray animals coming through the project. In 1994, MHF moved into its original location on Whiting Road. That same year, the foundation received certification as a non-profit.

They moved into a new, state-of-the art, facility on Sept. 24, 2019. Located on 23 acres in Marshall, MHF has served countless numbers of animals. In 2023, more than 1,000 came through, with 496 adopted to forever homes.

With hopes of continued success, Bates, who became involved in 2008, and the MHF staff remain hard at work, seeking to care for as many animals as possible, continuing this now 31-year-old labor of love.